Reading Readiness
by MrTyeDye
Summary: After a rough day at school, Lola receives consolation - and, surprisingly, a bit of wisdom - from her second oldest sister.


Leni, like most of the Loud house, was accustomed to living in a loud environment (no pun intended). Between Luna's guitar playing, Lynn's chaotic indoor sports and Lisa's explosive experiments, there was rarely a moment when the hallway wasn't filled with noise. So, over time, she trained her ears to filter out the constant drone of chaos, discerning between meaningless background noise and urgent matters that demanded her attention.

Such was the case one afternoon, when her fashion magazine reading in her room was interrupted by the unmistakable shriek of Lola coming from downstairs. It wasn't at all uncommon for Lola to raise her voice, but Leni picked up something more troubling than mere anger in her voice. She sounded angry, to be sure, but there was an underlying layer of hurt beneath the rage. Concerned, Leni put down her magazine and walked out into the hallway. Peering down the stairs, she saw Rita on her knee, vainly trying to console Lola.

"Lola, sweetie, I know you're upset, but..."

"NO!" yelled Lola. "I'm never going to school again! I hate it!"

Lola stomped up the stairs, not even acknowledging Leni as she trudged by her, entered her room and slammed the door behind her as hard as she could. From the brief glimpse of Lola's face, Leni noticed that her eyes were red and puffy, and waterfalls of wet mascara were cascading down her cheeks. With her heart aching for her little sister, Leni knew she couldn't rest until she got to the heart of what was the matter. She heard Rita coming up the stairs, but she waved her off, assuring her that she would handle everything. Their mother was already working around the clock to keep the house intact, so Leni reasoned that it was only fair for herself to pitch in every now and then.

She creaked open the door to see Lola face-down in her pillow, weakly pounding her gloved fists against the sides of the mattress. Leni was expecting a scene like this, but that didn't make it any less heartbreaking. She walked into the room and took a seat upon the mattress, and after a moment's hesitation, started up the conversation.

"What's wrong?" asked Leni, opting for the simple, direct approach.

"Go away, Leni," whimpered Lola, her voice muffled by the pillow.

"Lola, please," said Leni, taking on a tone that was just a bit firmer. "I don't want to leave you all alone like this. Talk to me."

Lola sprang up from the pillow (leaving behind a couple of mascara stains) and shot Leni a furious scowl, the intensity of which made Leni flinch. "Why?!" she demanded, wiping away the rivulets of mucus trickling down from her nose. "So you can laugh at me like everybody else?!"

Leni, sensing that she was treading in dangerous territory, took a moment to piece together a careful, tactful response before speaking.

"Okay, like, I don't even know what went down today, but I promise that whatever it was, I'm not going to laugh at you."

Lola groaned in resignation. "Fine," she said, her voice dripping with bitterness and her lips locked in a pronounced pout. "You wanna know what happened today? I got laughed out of the school for being a big, stupid dummy. That's what happened."

Leni gasped. Whatever relief she felt at convincing Lola to open up was immediately squelched. She especially hadn't expected her to use the word "stupid", which was practically an expletive at Lola's age. "Lola, _stop_ ," she said sternly. "It breaks my heart when you talk about yourself that way."

"But it's the truth."

"It's _not_ the truth," said Leni, grasping Lola by the chin and forcing her to look her in the eye. "You're, like, super talented and bright and pretty. You've got so much going for you. Those pageant awards you've got in the trophy case didn't win themselves. And remember when you helped us all pass our homeschool tests?"

Lola responded with a begrudging "Mm-hmm...", letting her eyes drift away from Leni's.

"'Mm-hmm' is right. So I don't want to hear you putting yourself down anymore. Understand?"

Lola nodded. "Okay," she said in a near-whisper.

Leni let go of Lola's chin and scooted a couple inches back, giving her some space. "Now, tell me what happened today," she asked, in a decidedly softer tone.

Lola gave herself a moment to wipe her face clean before speaking. "Well... today, during reading class, the teacher had us read _Awful Andy in Room 4A_."

Leni's face lit up. "Oh, hey, I remember the Awful Andy books! They were _totes_ my childhood. My favorite was the-"

She cut herself off once her eyes refocused themselves on Lola's dour face. "Oh, sorry. Keep going."

"So the teacher wanted one of us to read the first chapter aloud, and I thought I was getting pretty good at reading, so I volunteered."

Lola's tear ducts started to open up again, and she had to choke back a heavy sob before continuing.

"But it was _hard_. The other kids kept bugging me to read faster, but there were words I didn't know, and words I wasn't sure how to pronounce. Like 'eventually'. I... *sniff* I tried to sound it out, but it came out all wrong. I said 'even-tully'. And... and..."

Lola turned around and slammed her face back down onto her pillow, erupting into sobs.

"...and the other kids made fun of mee-heee!" she bawled.

Leni scooted up to Lola's prone form, stroking her golden blonde hair and giving her ample time to pour her heart out.

"T-they called me 'dumb', and 'slow'," said Lola, who sounded as though she had to force those two pejoratives out of her throat. "A-and then they said I should be sent back to preschool."

"That's _awful_ ," said Leni. "What did your teacher do?"

"He told them to quiet down and let me read. But by then, I just gave up. I let someone else read instead, and for the rest of the class, I just sat there with my head down."

Leni began to rub Lola's back, which quivered from the force of her sobs. "Sounds like you had a really rough day," she said. "But I'm sure next time you'll-"

"You don't get it," interrupted Lola. "There won't _be_ a next time. I'm never going back to that school! Never, ever, _ever_!"

Leni sighed, pressing her hand deeper into her back. "Lola, I'm sorry you had such a bad day, but, like, come on. You need to go to school."

"What's the point?!" cried Lola. "They'll just put me back in preschool with the rest of the stupid babies!"

The last word in that sentence was spat out with such venom that Leni flinched, jerking her hand away from Lola.

"Lola, look at me," she said, in a tone of authority that was usually more characteristic of Lori. When Lola didn't comply, she lifted her face up off her pillow, grabbed her by the chin again and pulled her face towards hers.

"You're _not_ stupid, and you're _not_ a baby," she insisted, furrowing her brow. "You're just different."

"But I'm different in a _bad_ way," said Lola, her voice a creaky whimper. "I'm behind everybody else. They can read words like 'eventually' and 'occasion' and 'obvious', and I just can't. There's something wrong with me."

That remark, to Lola's surprise, broke through Leni's firm demeanor. She chuckled and shook her head back and forth, eliciting a raised eyebrow from her younger sister.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. You think you're the only kid who has trouble learning how to read? Lots of kids do. Lots and lots and lots."

Lola broke away from Leni and dropped into a sulky pouting stance, with her head down, her shoulders slumped and her arms crossed. "Yeah, right," she said. "Like who?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Lola noticed Leni pointing her finger towards herself. This was enough to get her to drop her pout and turn back towards Leni with a look of intrigue in her tear-stained eyes.

"You?" she asked.

"Mm-hmm," said Leni, as she put her arm around Lola's shoulder. "When I was your age, I struggled just as much as you."

Lola scooted closer to Leni, gently laying her head against her breast. "Did the other kids make fun of you?"

"Sometimes. But there's something I figured out about about them."

Lola's eyes widened with wonder. "What's that?" she asked, a hint of excitement entering her voice.

Leni leaned in closer to Lola, as if she were sharing some well-kept and immensely valuable secret.

"You see, Lola, there are some people in this world who don't like themselves, and it's hard for them to feel good about who they are," said Leni. "So, to make themselves, like, feel better, they put _other_ people _down_. That's what they did to me, and that's what they're doing to you."

Lola rubbed her chin in thought as she mulled over Leni's words. After all the harassment she endured at the hands of her classmates, it never occurred to her that _they_ might feel inferior to _her_.

"So... so what do I do, then?" asked Lola. "It's not _my_ fault that they hate themselves."

"I'll tell you what you do," said Leni, wagging a finger at Lola. "You keep your head held high, and you keep on reading. They want you to feel bad about yourself, but you don't give them the satisfaction. If you don't let it affect you, they'll give up on you and try bothering someone else."

This caused Lola's face to brighten up a bit, but a hint of skepticism still lingered. "But what if they don't?" she asked. "What if they keep teasing me?"

Leni grinned. "Then you've won. Because the teacher will see that _you're_ staying on task like a grown-up little lady, and _they're_ making a big fuss over nothing - like a bunch of _dumb babies_."

Lola giggled, relishing in the satisfaction of seeing her tormentors in an entirely new light. "So _they're_ the ones who need to go back to preschool."

"Ex- _actly_ ," said Leni, booping Lola on the nose and eliciting another giggle. "Feel better?"

"Mm-hmm," hummed Lola, who now bore a satisfied grin.

"Feel ready to go back to school tomorrow?" Leni asked.

Lola nodded.

"Then my work here is done," said Leni, who began to push herself up off the bed.

"Wait!" cried Lola, causing Leni to freeze in her tracks.

"Hmm? What's up?"

In response, Lola sprung up, hugged Leni around the neck and planted a big, sloppy kiss on her cheek.

"Thank you," she whispered. "I don't know what I'd even do without you."

Leni blushed and giggled at the display of affection. "Of course, Lola."

As soon as Lola released her, Leni hopped off the bed and started walking out of the room. A moment later, however, she felt a tug on her dress, and looked behind her to see Lola's pleading eyes gazing up into hers.

"Ooh! And before you go, can I read you something?" asked Lola, jumping off the bed and bounding towards her bookshelf. "I really think I've been getting better and I want you to see for yourself. Pretty please?"

Leni chuckled, knelt down and gave Lola's hair a good ruffling before walking over to the bookshelf and picking something out. "Sure, Lola."

The two of them took a seat on the bed, with Lola resting comfortably in Leni's lap as the book was opened up in front of her. Throughout the entire affair, Leni spoke nary a word; she just gazed down at her little sister, beaming with adoration and pride.

"There once was a pri...prince, who lived in a castle. The prince was self...ish, and cru...cruel. Then, one night, an..."


End file.
